Water purification plant dedicated in Hadera

A huge new desalination facility on Israel’s Mediterranean seashore, with a network of pipes beneath the beach reaching far into the ocean, could help solve Israel’s chronic fresh water shortage, officials said last week.

The plant, one of the largest in the world, turns sea water into drinking water. It stands next to the northern city of Hadera, the third of five large facilities that will dot the coastline, designed to provide two-thirds of the country’s drinking water and reroute the National Water Carrier, a water transport system that has sustained Israel for 50 years.

The facility, which Israeli President Shimon Peres inaugurated in a ceremony May 16, includes a series of interconnected round and rectangular concrete buildings. It has been in operation since January.

Water has been a source of conflict for Israelis, Palestinians and other Arab neighbor states for decades. With the development of desalination techniques, Israeli officials began to look to the sea for a solution to the region’s water woes. The current push to build desalination plants began in 2000 during a prolonged drought.  — ap